Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - Golden Age by Wang Xiaobo

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

This week's book guest is Golden Age by Wang Xiaobo.In this episode Sara and Cariad discuss revolutions, little monks, ball breaking, girlfriends, poetry, translation and hidden ovaries.Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!Trigger warning: In this episode we discuss suicide.Golden Age by Wang Xiaobo is available to buy here.Tickets for Sara's tour show I Am A Strange Gloop are available to buy from sarapascoe.co.ukSara’s debut novel Weirdo is published by Faber & Faber and is available to buy here.Cariad’s book You Are Not Alone is published by Bloomsbury and is available to buy here.Cariad’s children's book The Christmas Wish-tastrophe is available to buy now.Follow Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club on Instagram @saraandcariadsweirdosbookclub and Twitter @weirdosbookclub Recorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sarah Pasco. Hello, I'm Carriad Lloyd. And we're weird about books. We love to read. We read too much. We talk too much. About the too much that we've read. Which is why we've created the Weirdos Book Club.

Join us. A space for the lonely outsider to feel accepted and appreciated. A place for the person who'd love to be in a real book club, but doesn't like wine or nibbles. Or being around other people. Is that you? Join us. Check out our Instagram at Sarah and Carriad's Weirdo's Book Club for the upcoming books we're going to be discussing. You can read along and share your opinions.

Or just skulk around in your raincoat like the weirdo you are. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you. This week's book guest is Golden Age by Wang Jalbo. What's it about? A young man remembers his sexual conquests during the Cultural Revolution and China. What qualifies it for the weirdos book club? Well, it's the most we've ever had to discuss the male member.

In this episode, we discuss revolutions. Little monks. Ball breaking. Girlfriends. Poetry. Translation. and hidden ovaries. Trigger warning in this episode, we discuss suicide.

Hello, Sarah. Hi. You're saying a very shy, hello. Oh, what I? Are you nervous about picking one of the biggest books in the Chinese canon? I didn't pick it, Sarah. Oh, yeah. But you did?

Well, you bought it for me for Christmas. Yeah, but you read it first. That's true. You picked it for the episode. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Regular listeners will know that you gifted me this.

Yes. The Christmas episode. Uh-huh. It sat on my pile for a while. Not really, a long time. No, too, actually. I read it in January. But I was like, and I thought, oh, no, I want to read that.

It's got a nice painting on the front, my copy. Beautiful, yeah. Which is the cover, the Memory of Youth Number 4 going home, painted in 2006. And it drew me, and I thought, I'm going to go for it. But I knew nothing about this. I didn't know. It was a cult Chinese classic. Yes.

So, this week's book guest is Golden Age by Juan Jalbo. Yeah, and it was published, 1992, 1994. depending on translation, I think. This author only published for five years. And then he died at very young age. And he's the biggest selling male author in China. Yeah, he's huge. He's massive.

He's a penguin classic. And just recently been translated by an American translator called Yan Yam. So, yeah, I've got proof, actually. Oh, is that what you've got? The proof. An advanced reading copy because there must be on the lists. You get the list. in literature.

Yeah, very few of us. You do, you get all the advance proofs before everyone. I do. They've all got my address. They all text each other my address. All the books are through the end of the book. We've got the new Chimamanda Ningozi Adichie. Yes. And people are jealous.

Of course they are. Of course they are. When have we got that proof, I thought, this is what I did this show. Yeah. To get that early. A month early. All you need to do is start getting sent-free cakes and you'll be the happiest lady in the universe.

Oh, God. Once Pertisserie Valerie gets your address. Pierre Hermie, please. Who? Pierre Hermie. Who's that? I say just a great Parisian patisserie that has a branch in London as well. Oh, they do?

They're Euristar the Macaughan's over. Do you think that's Patisory Valerie's ex-boyfriend? Pierre Hermie. Yeah. I think he once slept with her on a skiing holiday and he does not speak to her anymore. Oh my God. Yeah, Petissue Valerie's not. Poor Valerie.

Anyway, we're talking about Golden Age. I'm really excited to talk about Golden Age actually. It's exciting. Because there are so. many things, so many books and writers that I adore that it reminded me of. Yes. But in particular, because at the weekend, agree. Big shout out to The Years by Annie Erno. We went to see the play. And there is such a heavy overlap with this book. And the ending is almost identical. The ending is about him writing about his own life and his place in time. And he says, suppose I did want

to write about the years. As water flow like that, my worry wouldn't be for a lack of things to write, but that I would never get to them all. To do it, I would need an all-knowing pen of history. or several pens of histories, because they're both writing about such major events through a personal perspective. And then actually it's this work of history. And, you know, he's only 40 when he ends this because he died at 44. I would need to throw myself wholeheartedly into it and write nonstop until I died. Only then would I be able to stand up straight before God's cruel death by aging and prove the time a champ.

And before I decide to do that, I still need more time. And having just seen the years on stage and a woman going through the ages of her life. And this is why that, so it's part of a trilogy, Golden Age, Silver Age and Bronze Age. And so it just really felt like he's picked the really sexual years of a man's life. We should say. Should we? That it is saucy. Is it saucy?

Right. Okay, so you gave it to me for Christmas. Oh, it's too saucy for your best friend for Christmas. No, no. First third, I would describe as a communist carry-on. Yeah. Like, there is so... It's a great description.

It is so smutty. and he has so much sex but in a very smutty way he doesn't know he wants to have a lot more sex than he has yes but there's a lot of talk about his little monk he does talk about his penis a lot Sarah one mention is a penis it's enough for me thank you very much

but this is why so the authors I wrote down at the front that he really reminds me of obviously Vonnegut and Richard Brought to him but Philip Roth Portnoy's complaint Martin Amis the Rachel Papers and a lot of Joseph Heller and Henry James have the character the penis

the character's penis is another character He also really reminded me, Spike Milligan's War Diaries. Oh, okay. So very similar. Like, I think what's interesting, this is a very, this is a strong genre of a book. Yeah. Which is man at 20th century dealing with either World War II or in this place, the cultural revolution. And we've definitely seen that a lot and it's done.

He, this man is funny, subversive, sarcastic. He, like, satirises authority continually, but in a way that we also see him being continually damaged. But I've never seen it from the Chinese point of view and the cultural revolution point of view. Well, I know very, very little, if not nothing, about this 10-year, 143-day war. And interestingly, in the introduction, which is very, very helpful, it says that because it was 10 years afterwards, actually, it was a new genre.

I don't have an introduction. Uh-oh. They cut the introduction? Yeah. Okay. Because I could have done with an introduction. Yeah. So it's only a couple of, I'll rip mine out and give it to you. But what's so fantastic is,

Oh, no, I didn't get any. So basically there had been lots of books published. Of course, artists and writers were processing what had happened to them, the country. And hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, were killed in that period of time. But this book, the fact that it was dark and humorous, was a brand new take on it. Yeah. And it's still on the bestseller lists. And he published it in Taiwan, I read as well.

First of all, we've both been on the same pages. And I read somewhere that because it's funny, it's still being published because it's not overtly critical and it doesn't name anyone, but it just sort of gives you this every man story of what's happening. So we should say it's about he starts when he's 21. Yeah. And he's stationed in this remote mountain commune. Is it Yonman? Yunnan, I think. Yonan.

And he's sort of working as a farm, farm labourer. Yeah, he's imprisoned there. It's a punishment. Yeah. But it's farming. is what he's doing, even though he's intellectual. And that's the first half. And then we move into...

But he's sort of... He's trying to seduce a woman by calling her an old shoe. What did you think about all the old shoe stuff on the first pages? So the woman... There's a doctor there called Chen Jingyang. And he wants to have an affair with her. See, that's what I found... She's married, but her husband went to prison.

Her husband went to prison. And everyone thinks she's having loads of affairs, so they call her the old shoe. But she's actually not. Which is a term for women who are having an affair. Well, somebody's getting about, basically, because her husband's not there. And he calls him an old shoe, and she's threatening to slap him. But I felt, I mean, as a beginning, I loved it so much. It made you think of Stuart Lee routines.

When you say a phrase so much that it becomes something else, the phrase old shoe, an epic friendship, which is what is offering her, which is sort of becomes their sexual liaisons, is this epic friendship that they're consummating. They're doing epic friendship in the woods. And it reminded me, I don't want to say it reminded me of jazz, because I don't know anything about jazz, but I do know Stuart Lee routines.

Sarah, we all know about jazz. It's in there. Old shoe. See? Yeah. I was so shocked at the beginning because I didn't have an introduction. I didn't read the back

because I was like, I just want to go straight in. So there was so much stuff. I was like, what? This is just about a horny young man trying to fuck this woman. And then it got funnier and funnier. So like you said, the old shoe. And the character of Chen Jin Yang,

the old shoe, is so funny. And it's sort of written. in context of like, you know, he is deeply sexist and misogynist, but she is, she really gives him so much shit. So this is the second page, this is, and I just love it so much, this is when I'm like, oh, I'm going to

love this book so much in the way that we love things like Dario Foe and these satirists, okay, as for why everyone wants to call you an old shoe, I think the reason was this, everyone believes that the kind of married woman who doesn't have affairs should have leathery faces and saggy breasts. This is him, the logic that always goes through the book, which is really irrational, irrational use of logic.

for comedy. Your face isn't leathery and your breasts don't sag. Therefore, you must be what they say. If you don't want to be an old shoe, then you should weather your face and let your breast sag. Only then will people stop calling you an old shoe. Of course, that would be quite a sacrifice. If you aren't inclined to make such a sacrifice, then you should just have an affair. That way, even if you will agree that you are an old shoe, they don't need to figure out if you really had affairs before calling you an old shoe. You are the only one responsible for making sure that no one can call you names. I know. But what's so wonderful about this, this is page two, is that 90 odd pages later

when they have had a consummated affair and it is revealed people do stop calling her an old shoe because they don't actually say it when it's been proved that's so funny it's so funny again that really like weird logic

that when you're living in a time when nothing makes sense and so you can make up your own logic because nothing makes sense like the world is upside down catch 22 Joseph Pella again another war it reminded me also

black had a blacker goes forth the same thing as well But isn't this huge reference points that we're having discovering this author and going Oh my God, the scope of what their work is immediately puts them in a canon I know, that's why I was surprised

As like the more it went on And the more the character, Wonger You sort of fall in love with him Like I was like, oh he's so brilliant and charming Oh I see Yeah, but so the language of about his genitals As in like if you were had to analyse He talks about his penis so much

Yeah yeah And his balls His balls being crushed I felt it was a way of it kept stopping me like him. Once he described his penis as a skinned rabbit, did you find that funny? Do you know what it did? I liked him.

He was so logical mad and then he would do something so disgusting that I became so repulsed by him. It went back into liking. That's what I mean. It was like, I see because I... It went back all the way around to like, oh, right. It was really comedy going, push away, push away,

don't like me. I'm not a hero. But it just went, do you know what I mean? You're like, you're so gross. All right. I can see why they're all sleeping with him because you're like, all right. Like, it just so.

because he owns his disgustingness. And he's so honest about the fact that he's obsessed with his penis and he's obsessed with trying to have sex with these women. But also these women often say no to him and he's just like, he wants them to consent and he wants them to enjoy it. Yeah, he's not horrible. There are two quite huge things in terms of him as a, and I would say compared to something like Martin Amos

or other books which are much more like, who cares about the person. A much more manipulative that you're listening to this man just to justify himself. as a character this one is he's he and as a writer he's very aware of the humanity of the women he's like oh little bell

yeah bicycle bell bicycle bell who's another girlfriend comes later when he's moved away from the farm and he's like oh she can only orgasm if I massage her breast I'm just having to massage her breast constantly

but it's like it's done in that way of not like oh there's something wrong with her it's very um honest it's like quite this honesty about it which I found which made me We like him. And it feels really, really modern because of that. Yeah, it feels really modern. Because we're reading it 20 years after it was published. And do you know what's made me think of? Remember ex-wife by Ursula Paris? Yes. Which was so sad sometimes. Like some of the things

she had to put up with was so painful. Whereas there's something, this is quite rompy. That's what I mean it's like a cat, like it's quite joyous. Yeah. But against the background of people killing themselves because the government is so awful. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so that's it. There is a very extreme story in the last third of the book, which does involve someone taking their own life in a really, really brutal really brutal way public way

the way that it's but it's dealt with as a comedy but he's fascinated with it he's fascinated there's a description not dealt with the comedy

isn't it it's like he keeps swinging back it's because it's so strange what has happened and so strange how it's dealt with it's quite graphic

I don't know we should go into it so that's the warning is it's a really graphic description what happens to this person's body after they have taken their own life is very public and graphic and even me saying that

makes it sound worse. Yes. But he's sort of, he's obsessed with why this person did that. Yeah, in that way. And they must have, and because they were a very intelligent person, he presumes it was all part of a plan

and they knew what would happen afterwards as well. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I mean, and that's the thing, like that's what's very skillful, wasn't it? Because it is funny the way that this body is dealt with. But also then he, that bit where he meets the son, not the person's taking the life.

And suddenly I feel like everything was undercut. But do you remember when we read watermelon sugar, very similar, there's a character who takes their own life. And it's like, whoa, this really jarring. Yeah. But still in a really absurdist world. Yes.

That's what it means. Yeah, it's like you said, it fits into that canon of satire where you're like, oh, I'm laughing. But also, oh, fuck, that is happening. And he's, his obsession with things drives it a lot, doesn't it? Like, he is obsessed with his penis. He's obsessed with having sex. But in a jazzy way, there's just these motifs that he sort of really clings onto.

They come back, they come back, they come back. And then there'll be some kind of resolution with it. And then they're sort of left behind. There were so many jokes. Yeah, it's really funny, isn't it? Really, really funny. I laughed out loud quite a lot when I was reading it. And I really surprised, like some of the stuff.

But it's often the way he speaks to people. Like, he's so honest. He says, like, exactly what he's thinking to quite a lot of superior people who are often really surprised. Yeah. Like, he has to write their confessions. I thought that was like he's right in those confessions. And they're also getting titillated.

by them and say more detail than the confessions please because first of all he's like you know I did a bad thing yeah I had sex with her and they're like no no no more graphic and what was she like well position was she in what was her face doing yeah yeah there's a lot of yeah it's it's I've never read a book well that we just said it's like like it really like I have never read a book about China like this like no not in a rarefied fashion this is why it's so important to get really good translations

yeah the translations that are really important in other countries because otherwise stuff is so skewed. And in terms of like, I read loads, but is it very, very Eurocentric, white-centric women? We do love a lady talking about emotions. How many men have we read really? Well, this is why we said to do this. Because I was like, Sarah, I read a book by a man and I liked it.

They do talk about their penises a lot, don't they? I think that's thing. It does, because it's so graphic at the beginning. And I thought, oh my God, is the whole book going to be? about this. But then he moves from the farm. He becomes, he's working as a teacher for a long time. Yeah. And then after that he moves away from the teaching and moves back in with his mother. So like he goes, starts as a 21 year old, ends as a 40 year old. So yeah, you are at the beginning very much in a 21 year old brain who is just trying to fuck this woman as much as possible.

And then it does develop. And he's still trying to fuck women, but he's also dealing with, you know, his boss and his best friend and his ex-girlfriend. And it was like whirlpools, wasn't it? Sort of cyclical way of telling stories where it sort of sent like this has led to this has led to this but then it would come back but you were sort of gradually moving

forward in time in that way. The third section, which I think was my favourite, is called the years as water flow. And I thought this was really beautiful what he says, in the years as water flow there was one thing that worried me day and night

but first I should explain what I mean by years as water flow. Proust wrote a book about everything that happened to him. The story is like a person under hypnosis lying at the bottom of a river looking up at the slithering currents, bubbling lights, the leaves, rotten logs and glass bottles

passing by one at a time. As to the question of how best to translate this title, translators have spent volumes debating. The latest title in the debate is chasing the memory of the water light years. That's his Chinese translation of it. It sounds like Proust had already died and wrote the book as a zombie.

It doesn't roll off the tongue. In my opinion, years as water flow would be a good translation of Proust's title. I love that bit because it's like, yeah, I just thought, God, that's so poetic, a beautiful description of that title. And then you realise that's what he's doing with this whole third section of the book, The Years's Waterflow. And within the same novel to have a joke about how he always takes a little bottle of oil to his lover when they're going to have sex. But he once accidentally brought chili oil, so she always tastes the oil before they have sex, which he finds. And I'm going to read you that, because I've just described it to you, but it's so sort of adeptly done.

When we went out, she wore a backpack, inside were a few measly items, pieces of hemp sack matches cigarettes. I like to smoke after sex, a small bottle of oil, condoms. When the inventory was complete, there was a sense of accomplishment, but the inventory was rarely complete. After one disaster involving hot chili oil, she tasted every bottle of oil I brought before rubbing it on, which was somewhat of a mood killer. And this is like the first time he sort of mentions him and, you know, little Bell, bicycle, well-being together. Yeah. Whole universes. It's such a funny little observation.

He's talking about his friend Mr. Lee, who he sort of hates and loves and lives with them. And he's had this awful life. Blood-soaked turtlehead is also his name. Yeah. And he was beaten up once, really badly, almost paralysed him, Mr. Lee, because he was in this farm again, sent to a farm. And his job was to protect human shit because farmers were stealing human ship for manure.

Yeah, yeah. And he got. whacked by a farmer. And he said, in retrospect, it all seemed extremely uncanny. How did a doctor end up fighting old farmers over some stuff? And somehow that stuff had to be shit. Shit! He had returned to the mainland to protect the east, to protect the west.

And finally, to protect shit. If this isn't a nightmare, then I must be the reincarnation of a dung beetle. It's just, because he's saying these huge things that have happened to, like, all of them are moved across the country to do these awful jobs. The thing with that sewage, so it's being stolen. And he's using logic before that to go, why would anyone steal sewage? Who cares if you take it?

And it's like, oh, asking for sewage is worse than stealing it. Someone knowing that you need the sewage, so you have to steal it? As a sort of the matter of honour of it, I thought it was so incredible. One night, when I was having trouble falling asleep, I thought about Descartes' famous proposition. I think, therefore I am. It didn't surprise me that Descartes could think himself into being.

What I didn't understand was why I'm not Descartes. What was I missing? It's so silly, isn't it? Silly and brilliant. And so it's not the most page turn of his story. You're not going, oh, what will happen next? And that's the thing about the non-linear way it's going through scenes. But there's loads of bits of like, oh, that's really clever, or this is that.

But it's very light about a heavy topic. Yeah. Like it's really, I see he keeps you up in this sort of silliness of it. Because what's happening to them is so really. ridiculous and what's happening to his parents and his friends. But yet there's this horrible background of obviously deep, deep tragedy in it, which is why I was reading. Everyone was like amazed that it's still being published and was published at the time

and was, you know, hugely successful at the time. So the beginning of the second section at 30, a man, there's a line. And I, if I was going to have a line from this book on a T-shirt, it would be this one. Memories flooded my mind about how any of them could have really have. happened was beyond me. Oh, yeah. And a lot of the expressions that I found so funny, I don't know if they are well-known Chinese expressions, but don't act like a dog ran off with your head. I just love that. How are we up to go home and get out? But if we're still friends, enough to eat a meal together and stay, but don't act like a dog ran off with your head. I love

that. It's so good. Later in my life, people would say that Wang Er was a brave man, but that was all later after my 20s and 30s. At age 17, my balls had not yet hardened. In that moment, I was ready to bolt. Well, actually, right at the beginning, and actually, it's the quotes on the back. I was going to ask you if you agreed with this. So he turns 21. This is the golden age. He's setting up that this is the book. This is who he was then. They're castrating balls. And at this point he's saying that he didn't realize that that is what life does to human men. He says, I wanted to love to eat and instantly transform into one of those clouds, part of light, part darkened. It was only later that I understood. Life is but a

slow, drawn-out process of getting your balls crushed. Is that something you agree with? Do you think that was something definitely about sort of the the long cultural revolution or is that life in general? Yeah, it's hard to say. Like I think definitely the time he's living through must have been so insane. And he's also living in that time like he said when, you know, there's that quote, isn't it? Like that piece of land has to produce this much wheat no matter what.

So they're planting wheat constantly even though it's killing the soil and meaning that no, like the absurdity of what he's living to is definitely ball-crushing. I think you get better at dealing with your balls being crushed. What do you think? I don't know. I wonder if it's different not to have balls. Yeah, I was just thinking that. Have internal balls all nice and protected.

Because probably, I mean, the world can do a lot of things to me. But my ovaries are really safe. Same what you like, right? My ovaries are safe. Oh, would I want my stuff hanging around? No, nightmare. Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

Do you remember the moment when you realised that everything they had was just out and everything you had was just like in? Yeah. And like my brain was like, what? Yeah, exactly. Because you're brought up like, oh, there you're very different. Different is different. Yeah.

And then when you like understand that line is either balls. Yeah. Or it's open as not. I was one of those girls in the playground going around kicking boys. What, kicking the balls? In the balls, yeah. In the groin. Why?

Just randomly. What, as soon as I found out, their stuff was all hanging around. I'm like brilliant victims. Sarah, you're just a ball ball. I was horrible. Horrible. But children don't empathise. Especially I didn't.

I was going to say, they said some of them do. I loved it. I loved it. But why are you kicking in the balls? Make them cry. No, but like, had they done anything to you? No. You're just walking up and kicking some of the good?

No, I'm talking like quite a young age. I'm talking seven. Like, not like 15. I'd like it on the record that you've regularly told me you were bullied. Oh yeah, after secondary school. Yeah, but it sounds like a primary school, Sarah. Did you start secondary school by kicking people in the balls and being like, this is how it works? No, no.

I discovered football. I used my kicking for football then. Maybe that's what it was. It's like girls' family. And also no one had ever said to me like how, I remember some being flippant once about it, maybe I did sound about it. And a man saying to me, you have no idea how much that actually hurts what you're, I think I didn't really think it has.

hurt that much. I thought they were really overreacting. Oh yeah. But if someone kicked you in the ovaries, it hurt. Which is why keep them inside. I think I found the description, little monk really bad. Well, because the religious connotations? No. Why? Because of the bald little head. I'm like a capuchin monk.

If somebody would take the monk's name. Yeah, so what was it that bothered you about monk? Oh, it's so visual. So yeah, what are you visualising? That's what I'm asking, like a little capuching monk. No, like, it's just like, it's just something, it's really. It's making it's so person. It's not like, oh, my dick or something. It's like a little monk, like, a tiny monk with a little like hood on. Do you remember Jacqueline Novak's show when she talks about how if she had to get, she gets, she's all about the penis being the most feminine thing on a man? Yes.

And if she had a name, she'd be called Susan. If you haven't seen the show, it's called Get On Your Knees. It's a stand-up special. Yeah, it's a poem. About blowjobs. A hilarious poem about, well, I guess, the power of having someone's genitals in your mouth. Actually, it's very similar to kicking someone in the balls and that you do have all the power but we have thought of the act of giving someone all sex as submission.

Yeah, just calling it monk, just the little monk, it made it, I'm imagining arms and legs and a cassock and it just was too real for me. Yeah, the cassock was, yeah, part of it. Yeah. I thought it was funny. Oh, but you didn't get the, oh, God. No.

I guess how weird it must be to have an appendage. Yeah. So obviously I've got two small male children. children. Yes, is it. They're, you know, they're born with a fascination because it's right there and it's full of nerve endings. And so, of course, linguistically giving it a name a character.

Oh, like Judy Bloom, the book Forever, which was like a massive part of, my sexual arousal at secondary school, the guy names his penis Ralph. And I think, yeah, I forgot that. And that was so massive. Like, not the size of the thing. It was such a huge thing. like what's the boys. So this is like the era after primary school kicking

was still the othering of just from genitalia, just from some different. But also this is it. Ours are hidden. We can't name our ovaries. Like it'll be weird. It'd be weird. It's like because it's hidden.

Because even your clitoris is hidden. It'd be really weird to go, oh, that's Karen. She wants to see the manager. Yeah. Did you have permission to park there? It would be weird. It would be weird. Yeah.

It's like the very. It's like the visual nature of it, isn't it? Because it's out and there. The lack of privacy. Yeah. But that all adds to like masculinity, doesn't it? It's like it is out. They can see it.

They piss next to each other. Yes. It's such a different world. It is a different world. It's such a different world for us. Like, I still find it. Yeah. And when you do have kids, I obviously have a girl and a boy.

It's just having to have those questions and talk about it and not and trying not to make people feel weird about things. But yeah, they have a lot of conversations. because they can see the difference right in front of them. So there's a lot of that. Well, why? My son did sadly say, I wish I had evolved. Did you?

That means you're doing a really good job? Well, then I worry I'm going on to the other side. Being a woman is great. Like, do you know what I mean? I'm not doing much for masculinity. I'll come around when I've got peerage crabs. Okay, we'll really balance this out. I had to have the peerage at as well.

Yeah. They were my daughter had to kind of like, I had to say, imagine it's having to say, you see a face when she says every month, every month. Yeah. Oh. Oh.

And then she said, Mommy, it seems like the women are having a lot more, we get a lot more stuff that we have to do, don't we? They don't, they don't, they're not doing that. We still get paid less. Yeah, we say don't worry. Don't worry. Don't worry. We also have less money to worry about.

Which really helps our brains. I thought like it's interesting. that it was so male and so he was so not maybe male's unfair but like you know so like sex obsessed but I still really enjoyed it but also I loved the female characters

I loved his mum I loved his mum I love little bell bicycle bell was one of my face they're all funny they're fully rounded they have agency and it definitely isn't what he want they don't do what he wants his description of

sort of his own being conceived was so funny. So his mom made his dad meat sauce and noodles and so he doesn't like meat sauce and noodles because I'm made from meat sauce and noodles and then his dad ejaculated and his mom rinsed and rinsed and said it would be fine

and so he wonders if that doesn't why he doesn't like washing and he has these nightmares about floods because maybe that's because of the rinsing and then he's born two months early and he's in ICU so so funny about something it's very serious you know your own conception and then being a very very dangerously premature

baby. And like you're right, the female characters. So there's Changin Yang, Little Bell, Line, who's the sort of women he's in love with. I think that's all his girlfriend, isn't it? And then his mom and they are so, like they really give him so much shit. Yeah. And I love like Little Bell won't sleep with him. Yeah. She's like refusing to sleep with him. And then his parents, they're living with his parents. His parents go away and he's like, great, great, great. And the mum has spoken to Little Bell and being like, use a condom. Yeah. And he will try and tell you not to use a condom. So I'm going to tell you like, promise me. And there's that bit later on where he sort of realizes that if she had got pregnant,

they would have had to get like a special certificate and she would have, and, you know, she was younger, he was 23 and it would have been really dangerous what would have happened. And he doesn't, it's such a throwaway way, doesn't it? Just like, oh, I see my mum saved Little Bell's life. That's what she was doing. She wasn't about me having sex. She was saving this woman's life from being so dangerous. Illegely pregnant and not married. Similarly, they must have had quite a good friendship, Bicyclewell, Little Bell, and his mum, because she gives him his poems. He's writing all these poems to seduce her, and he's obviously like a really good poet as well. Yeah, a good writer.

And his mum is so proud of his poems. And for him, they're like, he's like saying, he uses the analogy or the metaphor. He says, my words are like, my come on the page because I'm trying to get this woman to sleep with me through these poems. And my mom's going to be lovely, come. Can I see some more of these? She says, I want to read everything you've written. And he's like, I will never write anything ever again, Mom. Writing poems was my biggest secret.

Sharing it was tantamount to lovemaking. When inspiration strikes, it is like an orgasm. And when the words appear on the page, it is like come. Only girls that I was sexually involved with are allowed to read my poems. How could they have ended up in my mother's hands? I felt like a chicken without a tail with nothing at all to cover my sphincter. I'd really recommend it as a read, because I do think it's one that, like, I'd never heard of before. It's a really satisfying, if you do read a lot, I think it'd be one that a lot of people would be like,

oh, I haven't read something like this. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And there's an amazing picture of him. Like, the picture of him makes him look like, I was like, oh, I want to hang out with you. Yeah. Like, he looks so cool.

He's so cool. He's obviously, obviously a genius of every level. And again, when the jokes are that funny and you know it's translated from another language. Yeah, yeah. Like, really incredible translator as well. He was married to a prominent sexologist and LGBTQ rights campaign. Yeah.

Well, they wrote a book about homosexuality, and it was the first book to, talk about, well it says in my introduction actually, I'm sorry he didn't get introduction. Yeah, why would they take that out of the painting classic? In five years, he published so much it actually makes you feel sick with jealousy, I mean, makes me feel sick with jealousy. So he wrote their world with his wife, the sociologist, and their world was the first serious academic study of homosexuality in contemporary China and a landmark book for its

breaking of social taboos and contribution to the fight against the stigmatisation of the queer community. It's like, all right, mate, write a really, really funny book and then write a really, really important book. And then he wrote an English language collection as well called The Pleasure of Thinking. I know he's a series of essays that he's also very famous for. I mean, amazing.

And then Dust Dart, he died very suddenly at 44. Awful, isn't it? But I find that amazing that he this book ends with him 40 and as we said, ends with him saying, I need more time. Yeah, I need to, I need four more years. I'll have to write till the end and then that is the end. But I always find that really interesting when people don't know their end. But we do.

Do you know what I mean? He's writing that 40 being like, I need more time, not knowing you've only got four years and we know that but that's what he's got to get done. Do you think that that adds something? I just find it interesting because I think it's really hard not to project. We just give somebody a full narrative. Yes. Yeah. Because they have a beginning, middle and end and we know you just get to, I think we can all visualize ourselves not knowing our, no one knows our ending. Talking about our death hypothetically, for a reader, it's not hypothetical. You're ghostly. It feels like from beyond the grave. Yeah. And it just you can't help but feel like, well, it's, you know,

thereby, by the grace of God, go I. It's like, we are all in that situation. We're all saying, I need more time and not knowing when... What film is it? What film is it, where they lie in the carpet near the fire? Lion King. And she says, we live through our deaf days every year. Oh, eternal sunshine.

Oh, no, one day. Oh, one day. Yeah. Yeah. One day. That's the whole point, isn't it? Yeah. Oh, is David Nichols already done it? So we liked it. I want to read more widely.

I want to read more men. and it is easy to go into this really snugly cave of books I know I'll love by authors I already adore. But discovering a brand new universe, it's so great because then you're sort of like, as I say, underlining, nodding, thinking, oh, and feeling a bit smug, I guess. It's a bit smug, but also it's like just trying something new and liking it. That's always a nice experience to be like, oh, I wouldn't have picked this up. And I have never heard of him. And no one had mentioned him to me.

I didn't get the advanced proof. So shout out for getting sent proofs. Christmas presents, getting people to enlarge the reading list, picking books for other people because they wouldn't necessarily always pick them up for themselves. I think also there's a really good writer called Rebecca Mackay, I think, and she was doing this thing called Read the World, where she was trying to read from all over the world, like their classic. That's our documentary.

Read the World. What is that? What is that? Well, no, let's pitch that. Don't tell Rebecca. And I sent you one, but we haven't done it yet because she, she was a documentary. was talking about this is a really famous Egyptian feminist novel that's like their game-changing book. And I was like, oh, yes. Like their handmade's tale kind of thing. Yeah, but like I think

from the 60s and she, you know, they like, if you're from there, you know that book. And I was like, that's what it feels with this. It's like, oh, you just get to like step out of your country. So we say English literature and we read this sort of quite, yeah, yeah, restricted canon of books. And I do think, I don't know, I feel like some, I feel like some banging translations coming out. I feel like people are making the effort to translate things really like, but before or 10 years ago obviously they were like, there's no,

like, why was this translated so late? It's 2025. It's only just like, that's mad, isn't it? Yeah. That's mad, isn't it? And on that note. And on that damning cultural note from Carriette Lloyd. It's mad, isn't it?

Yeah. Do you know my other favourite thing I say? It's just so complicated. Yeah. I would like to have a T-shirt with a little monk saying it's just so complicated, a little speech bubble. It's just so complicated.

I think it is complicated for little monks because they are both, you know, tiny and sensitive but also feared. See, Jacqueline Novak's special work on your knees on Netflix. Thank you for listening to The Weirdo's Book Club. Sarah is on tour this year. Tickets for her show I and the Strange Gloop are on sale now from sarahpasco.com. You can find out all about the upcoming books we're going to be discussing on our Instagram. At Sarah and Carriads Weirdo's Book Club. Thank you for reading with us.

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